If
by Somnacin
Summary: An alternate ending centered on what would have happened IF Charles had managed to remove Shaw's helmet.   set in First Class movie 'verse


**First Class and the characters therein are sole property of Marvel and Brian Singer. I'm just playing.  
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**Wrote this in one day, when I was delighting over my ACT scores. Played a little fast and loose with some canon, I'm sure...I'd appreciate it if you just overlooked my errors. After all, I'm only human.**

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><p>Charles can feel it. Their terror, the men on the ships running from their battle-stations to seek refuge in their cabins, digging out portraits of sweethearts and mothers and friends. He can feel the children's horror, their awe, as the man who stood at Charles' side for weeks displays the fullness of his power, his ability, his <em>mutation. <em>The missiles, Russian and American alike, spin slowly, metal scraping harshly against the wall of Erik's mind; Charles speaks and Erik does not listen, cannot listen. His anger no longer has a fixed point, his serenity has spun wildly out of his hands, and he looks at Charles with eyes like steel and says _Never again._

The missiles intended for the beach turn like great metal birds of prey and arc beautifully, terribly towards the ships that set them free. Charles can feel the fear, feel the captains' rush of regret as they brace themselves for the end, not only of their command but of their men's lives, their ships. The telepath kicks up sand as he runs, drives himself into Erik's side and forces him to the ground; he has no chance of winning, no hope of besting Erik's raw, lean strength, and Erik's face is almost regretful when he rolls them over. He drives his closed hand into Charles' mouth and Charles grasps at his arms, feels the hard muscle flexing as Erik strikes him. For a moment they toss in the sand, Charles reachingreachingreaching for Shaw's helmet, smoothly curved over Erik's sweat-slick hair. And then Erik is up, and Charles scrapes his nails against the metal dome in a last-ditch effort and the helmet slips off; he is immediately pinned to the ground by the straps and zips of his suit, squirming against the heated earth like a dying insect. The missiles resume course and the helmet lies in the sand, forgotten; Erik looks at it once, but his concentration is fueled only by his anger, and he cannot guide missiles and hold Charles and retrieve his helmet simultaneously.

_Erik, please don't! _Charles twists the thought into his friend's mind with desperate cruelty; a vessel pops in Erik's nose and blood runs freely down his bright, sticky face. Four missiles explode harmlessly away from the ships, slinging shrapnel and fire into choppy blue water.

_DAMNIT CHARLES! _The force pressing him into the sand strengthens, then trembles as another missile disintegrates. Charles digs his fingers into the sand, damp and hot, throws himself into Erik's mind.

The metal-bender freezes, an expression almost like betrayal stretched across his face, his dear face, as Charles drags himself to his feet. The missiles are all exploding now, their booms reaching a captivated audience on the beach a split-second after the metal has torn itself asunder.

"Erik, they didn't deserve to die," he says. "The order didn't come from them."

Erik stares blankly ahead, still, but Charles can feel his fury, his fear _what now Charles, what will you do with me now_.

"Nothing, my friend. You're free to leave or sta-"

He feels a surge of intent from further up the beach, turns in time to see Moira's gun rise, safety thumbed back. Thinks _MOIRA, NO _but the thought comes too late and the weapon barks twice before he can give Erik time to defend himself.

One of the bullets skims over the knuckles of Charles' right hand and pings into the wavelets; the other punches through Erik's shoulder, spraying blood on the smooth white sand, on his jaw. Raven screams in wordless horror and Alex and Sean close their arms around Hank, holding the Beast at bay; Moira drops her gun and looks to Charles for absolution. _I had to, he'd gone rogue, he would have killed you he would have killed us all_

He can't look at her, he can't, because Erik's long legs have crumbled underneath him and his outstretched hand has flown to his shoulder and his lips are thin, pinched, but he is screaming nonetheless._ Es tut weh, mein Liebster wie konntest du nur?_ Charles never learned German (he'd never felt the need) but now he wishes he'd taken a class, wishes he could interpret the baseline of Erik's thoughts, his default language.

He takes a step as Erik pitches forward and the metal-bender's face presses into Charles' thigh; his breath pools warmly, stickily, prickling the hairs and raising gooseflesh on Charles' skin. _Mein Liebster, mein Gott. _Charles places his hand on Erik's head and uses it to hold him in place as he moves, sinking to his knees and taking Erik into his arms, stretching him out across his lap. Moira's legs, which Charles thought so fine and womanly, appear in his peripheral vision.

"He needs a hospital."

_Keine __Krankehäusern, _Erik thinks, and his hand jerks up to touch Charles' neck, the thin strip of skin above the collar of his suit. _Charles, sie werden mich töten._

"I don't speak German!" Charles shouts. "I don't know what you want!"

_Was ich will?_ A single tear beads at the corner of eyes like steel; Charles smooths it away with his thumb, leans and kisses the bridge of the fine nose, gritty with sweat and sand and salt.

"Charles," Raven is behind him, closing ridged blue fingers over the bone of his shoulder. "Azazel says he can take Erik to a hospital, an American one."

The wicked-looking mutant walks in front of Charles and extends a scarlet hand, tail twitching in the breeze.

"I will make sure they are good to him," he says. "I can bring you after."

Later he can't remember how Raven separates him from Erik, if he holds on too tightly or says what he's thinking _My friend, my darling I will come for you, I swear it. _He can remember watching Azazel and Erik blink out of existence. He can remember Moira trying to say something soft, something appropriate, and having Hank close his hand around her throat until Charles told him to stop. He can remember one of Shaw's mutants introducing himself as Riptide, remember them all sitting on the beach and watching the ships laboriously drag themselves through the water. And he can remember the sun setting behind Azazel, and holding hands with Raven and Alex before the beach vanished in a swirl of crimson smoke.

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><p>Erik's suit has been exchanged for a checkered paper gown with lace-up ties, Shaw's helmet for neatly combed hair that smells faintly of antiseptic and buttery shampoo. His knuckles have been iced and taped (apparently Charles' face is harder than either of them thought), the cuts on his forehead have been smeared with creams, and the entryexit wound has been cleaned and packed to the best of the doctors' abilities. There's nothing for them to do now but wait for him to wake...it seems less and less likely with each passing hour.

Charles gave himself enough time in the mansion to show the new mutants to their rooms, bathe, and give his suit a thorough scrubbing. Then he was knocking down the door to Azazel's room (Raven had leapt away from the red-skinned man's side, tightened the cords of her bathrobe) and asking to be taken to Erik. The teleporter had kindly asked if Erik would want anything from the house, curled his lips when Charles said 'no' and grasped eagerly at his hand, and left him in the hospital room (presumably for the night. They hadn't exactly worked out a pick-up time).

He lifts Erik's hand and presses it against his cheek, touches lips to the smooth vulnerability of his palm; _mein Liebster. My darling._

"You can wake up," he whispers. "It's only you and me."

The other man's eyelids flutter, impossibly dark in his pale pale face. His fingers twitch, his spine lengthens; Charles feels the precise moment when Erik _decides_ to wake up.

"Charles?" he rasps. "What is this?"

"Westchester Medical," Charles replies, and Erik's face darkens _keine _Krankehäusern. __"Azazel brought you."

"Mmph." Erik tries to sit up, fails beautifully. Charles wonders when he started to think of Erik as beautiful, reflects briefly on the anchor flying above the Caspartina, slinging water droplets in a many-faceted arc... "Your CIA agent _shot_ me?"

"Yes."

Erik closes his eyes, shuffling through the Rolodex of memory; Charles touches the metal-bender's neatly taped knuckles against his sweat slick forehead and waits for him to remember the sickening, horrible betrayal. He can name the moment, hear the powerful whoosh of exhaled air, feel the stiffening of the hand against his skin; Erik is hard even in his infirmity.

"You were in my head, Charles," he says. "Like you were in Shaw's."

"Erik, my friend, _please_."

"I felt it coming, and I could do nothing."

"If I could take it back...if I could switch-"

He is suddenly and viciously pulled forward, long fingers tugging on his hair. _Thank God not Charles not mein Liebster _and then _Out of my head how dare you_

"God, you can't stop yourself. Can you?" Erik's voice is challenging, bitter.

"No," Charles tells the papery bedspread. "No, I can't."

He looks up and Erik is watching him, intent, still pale and drawn and more miserable than Charles has ever seen him. And he has seen him in the camps, in the mud and filth and horror of that place of silent burning and folding in on oneself. He has seen him laid open on an examination table, vivisection by Herr Doktor's hands, felt and heard and tasted the gunshot that felled his mother. This is a different sort of breaking, a different sort of dying; there is no rage, only a quiet disappointment. _Ought to have known shouldn't have trusted my fault_

"Go now," Erik says softly. "I'm finished with you."

"But I'm not finished with you, Erik Lehnsherr," Charles replies, and he leans up and presses a kiss into the corner of Erik's chapped lips. And then he is kissing him again, when the rejection he has steeled himself for doesn't come, and then Erik is grasping at Charles and breathing into him _at last at last_.

His body is hard with muscle and cool from blood loss and ridged with scars and Charles wants to map each glorious inch with his fingertips, his mouth. He cannot stand another moment of separation. Without a thought or word he slides onto the thin hospital mattress, placing his knees on either side of Erik's long long legs and his hips against Erik's hips; the other man jerks as Charles settles his weight there. _Do you know what you're doing?_

_Shh, I'll teach you._

Erik kisses him again, wet and sloppy and open, and then he makes a soft _nngh _sound against Charles' mouth. _I'm numb._

_Are you? _Charles reaches down, palms the sticky hardness of him. _Seems like all systems are go._

_No. Morphine...they've got it on a timer. _Erik sinks back, rolls his hips against Charles' just because he can and Charles feels his lazy delight at being able to do this to him, this one simple thing. _Not tonight, Liebster._

"And don't think I've forgotten," the metal-bender whispers aloud. "You let that _woman_ shoot me."

"I am so sorry," Charles says. He lays a kiss on Erik's cheek, his eyelids, the line of his cheekbone. "Truly I am."

The make-up is clumsy, neither of them quite sure what to say or where the new boundaries should be drawn. But the complexities and niceties aren't important; what is important is that when Erik is released from the hospital, he comes home with Charles. He touches Charles with his kind hands and covers him with his hard body, and Charles whiles away the hours learning the angles and planes and tender places. Erik likes to be bitten at the place where neck and shoulder meet, likes for Charles to suck marks into his skin and make him toast in the morning; Erik learns that Charles likes it when he kisses his nape, when he touches him in front of the children, that the telepath lives for moments when they can sit and be quiet with each other.

It's not perfect. They still fight, and when Moira comes over to check on the kids Erik takes the car and drives until Charles can't feel him anymore. Sometimes Charles gets wasted and when girls offer to take him out back, Erik crushes their jewelry and drags Charles to the car by the elbow. They burn breakfast when Erik is on his knees _Oh God darling yes _and Raven starts screaming about the smoke, and the children all come thundering downstairs to catch them in the act (Erik is particularly vicious in training those days, compensating for his perceived loss of "bad cop" status; Charles can't tease him about it at all, or he runs the risk of being ignored for hours). They still disagree about the relationship between humans and mutants, an argument brought to a head by the quickly-stifled inquiry into the goings on during the 'Cuban Missile Crisis.' _Numbers on our arms and lists in the hands of evil men, Charles! Why won't you let yourself see it?_

There is an alternate future, one that Charles dreams about when new students begin trickling in, when Erik rests his head on Charles' chest and breathes in time with his heart. There is a future where Erik kept the helmet and Charles took the bullet (he's not sure why, but he often feels it would have struck him in the back), and Erik never kissed his mouth or touched his body or burned the breakfast. There is a future where they were forever squaring off over their ideals, neither able to truly love the other while they disagreed so fundamentally_. _There is a future where they lose Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, and are instead Professor X and Magneto, old enemies and older friends.

Charles is grateful that he never had to live in that world, ride out that terrible, lonely future.

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><p><strong><em>*<em>Mein Liebster- My darling**

***Es tut weh, mein Liebster wie konntest du nur?- It hurts, my darling how could you?**

***Keine Krankenhäusern. Charles, sie werden mich töten - No hospitals. Charles, they will kill me.**

***Was ich will? - What I want?**


End file.
